The 300 Section
by Vanamo
Summary: She tried to avoid the 300 section of the Dewey Decimal system. It contained everything she hated. Camteen if you look for it.


She kicked the dust at her feet, effectively ruining her shoes. They were probably pretty worn down by now. How long had she been walking? Two, three miles, or maybe it was hours. It was so nice outside. The leaves were just about to change, but the wildflowers poking out from the cracks in the sidewalk hadn't quite died yet.

She hadn't been paying attention to where she was, but looked up and realized she had stumbled up the streets to the library. Besides outside, it was her favorite place. It replaced her cold, sterile hospice smell with the wafts of old carpet laden with dirt and yellow pages and fading ink. She always brought plenty of books back to the hospice, hoping they would make it smell a little nicer, but those books were very particular about what environments they would release their scents into.

She tried to avoid the 300 section of the Dewey Decimal system. It contained everything she hated. The librarian, being the hook-nosed prude she was, put all the books about human marriage and sexuality right across from the miracle stories about terminal cancer patients going into remission and other Lifetime channel worthy tales. She hated the damn shelves looming around her, full of books about psychology and laws about euthanasia and social services. She would avoid them like the plague if the GED study packets weren't on the back shelf. Walking through ones to the left or right, religion and death customs, respectively, weren't much better. She would walk around the entire section if she didn't have to go through the children's corner and see all the happy families.

When she was a child, her mother had always loved to bring her here to the library. She hadn't understood it at the time, but her mother always wrote down what books she checked out and when in a small brown notebook. The oldest date was about twenty five years ago. There was a small note, only saying 'continued from my mother's notebook.' Apparently her grandmother had carried a notebook too.

She carried that notebook with her, everyday and all the time, even though there was no good reason to now. The books' titled ranged widely. The first pages, the first few years' books, were tales of death, sorrow, and social struggle. Particular favorites were circled, 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. Next on the list was a period of books circling around young love, 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Gone with the Wind'. She noted how most of these books were older, not published during her mother's time. For a year up to her birth, the books were actually happy endings. There weren't too many on that list. She wrote down almost every Dr. Seuss book afterwards, and 'Oh, The Places You'll Go' was circled with a star next to it. Other books for little girls followed with the occasional grown up book, usually historical fiction.

Around her sixth birthday, the frequency decreased and the few books were continually darker, like 'White Oleander' and '1984'. Her mother's writing became hardly legible and the books, 'The Giver' and 'Night', became shorter and a less challenging, less to remember. She finally stopped writing the entries two years ago, when she was admitted to a hospice.

It wasn't always like this, of course. They had been a happy family once, she, her dad, and her mom. Then her mom got sick and she began to hate her. Of course she never outright said it to her father, who took such wonderful care of them. He could tell though, when she stopped bringing over friends, stopped talking about school because the other kids would dance wildly in front of her, laughing cruelly.

She had not ridden with him when he took her mother to the hospice. By then she could only walk using a walker, and she had to help her get dressed. Her mother yelled at her that morning to not wake her up so early and that her unkempt hair was getting too long. She smiled weakly and nodded, trying not to let the words affect her before going to make them breakfast.

Her father yelled at her through the door, how much she'd regret it. How could he blame her? She was thirteen years old and tired of looking after the person who was abusing her physically and emotionally. She didn't care; she just wanted them to stop yelling at her all the time! It took her parents ten minutes to get to the car, two to get in, and one for her father to usher her down. She stared down at him and her mother, trying to seem cold. For a split second, her mother stared back up. Maybe she remembered who she was today.

She found that little brown notebook on her dresser, wondering how her mother had managed to make it up the stairs. She walked to the library and checked out the first book on the list. It was a book of quotations and short stories, which she hid under her bed. On the first page, the very first line, it said 'If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.' Her mother 'danced' plenty already.

She held up her uncaring act for the whole summer. Her father worked two jobs and slept at the hospice, only coming home to change his clothes and collect the climbing bills. He didn't look at her, she didn't look at him. It was his way of coping. When she emerged for the first time in months before him, she was three inches taller and asked in a quiet voice how her mother was doing. Not well, he had said, she needs you. That was obviously the last thing she wanted to do. An internal battle played in her mind for what seemed like eons.

She finally resigned herself, for two years, to be there once again and let her mother destroy what was left of her self esteem and pride. She didn't love her, but she didn't want her to die. To say it was okay to let her die was to say it was okay that she herself may die twenty or thirty years down the road. So she still hated her, but maybe if she buried it deep down, her mother might get better. Maybe if she acted like she cared, she could convince herself it was true.

She had so say, the hospice was nicer. They were doing a lot of research these days, developing potentially better treatments, the nurse told her. She tried to be optimistic about them. She sat next to the bed, everyday, while her dad worked. He never asked her to drop out, she offered. She could study and read to her mother. It would be a better use of her time, and he would make more money working two day jobs instead of the night shift. She never told her father the truth, but she earned a little extra when they needed it off the streets, telling him that the nurses paid her to run errands.

She helped her eat, held her hands around the book and turned the pages for her while she read them aloud. She helped the nurses change the IV tube and catheter and washed her. In those two years, after her three month absence, she noted the changes.

Her mother didn't yell as much, in fact she could barely speak. Sometimes her hands would twitch and would accidentally hit her, or they would barely move as her mother drifted in and out of consciousness. The first one happened less and less, but almost every time she would have to leave the room and take a breather.

Her mother didn't know she had asthma, of course. Her mother didn't know she was bisexual, or loved street basketball, or wanted to learn how to surf. She couldn't tell her these things. The repeated bruises formed from growing up without a real mother had sunk beneath her skin these days. She hid it all behind the smile she had been giving people for years. Her mother didn't know who she was anyway, so she could have told her all about these things and it wouldn't have mattered. Nothing really mattered.

It happened on her birthday. Her dad had been working. She had steadily been reading through her mother's favorites on the list, and she was finally on the last one. She felt somewhat proud under her comfortable numbness. It was a nice book full and even though her mother was asleep, she kept reading. Her mother was sleeping a lot now, and she enjoyed the relative quiet, except for the rustling sheets from the tremors. After she finished this book, she would have to place this one in safe keeping and start her own little notebook.

She didn't say 'hey, I'm your daughter and I'm 16 today. You may have passed this horrible disease onto me, thanks a lot for the present.' or anything she wanted to say except the printed words on the page.

"And she was finally at peace." She whispered. That might have been the best book she'd ever read. "Did you like it, mom?"

She received no answer. Her mother's heart monitor beeped rapidly and nurses rushed in and pushed her aside, stepping all over the library book.

So here she was, two weeks later, at the front desk of the library. The old bat scoffed at the sight of the book.

"Goodness gracious, girl! Two years of on time returns in perfect condition and you bring me this? Absolutely unacceptable," The librarian continued to reprimand her for about five minutes while her eyes drifted from the ugly broach pinned on her collar to an older brunette girl eyeing her from the 610s.

"And you'll be expected to pay for it."

She nodded. "Of course,"

She counted out the wrinkled bills and handed back the book. A small _thud _and out fell a small brown notebook between the pages. The librarian looked over her glasses at it. "Is this yours?"

Remy looked back over her shoulder.

"No."


End file.
